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Keep the Secret

Karen

"My mother?" I asked. Principal Powers nodded.

"Your birth mother. She's in the hospital." I gasped, realizing the severity of the situation. "There's more." She took a deep breath, hesitating whether or not to tell me. "There was a threat written on the walls where she was attacked; the police suspect that it was directed towards you." I froze. I realized I knew who it was. But I had kept silent so long; I kept my end of the bargain. She put a photo in front of me of a wall with a message deeply scratched into it. 'Keep the secret, keep the Peace'. My mouth was gaping. "Do you understand what this means?" I was torn. I wanted to tell her, maybe I should've. Clearly he was going to hurt the people I kept silent to protect for so long. I betrayed my family for this secret. But I knew he was capable of hurting many more.

"No, Ma'am," I answered. I tried hard to hold back the tears, but to no avail. Luckily, my mom came into the office.

"Principal Powers," she greeted her and then led me out.

My mom flew us in her car over to the hospital and we darted to my mother's room. I slowly walked over to her bedside. She was unconscious with scratches and bruises all over her pale skin. She seemed so breakable, and she so nearly was. I instantly started sobbing and reached out to hold her warm hand. I hoped that I was more like her than anyone else. I had last seen her just before school started. I remembered telling her how much I didn't want to be a hero. She had told me that I had a responsibility to help others with whatever skills or gifts I had. It was my fault that she was here. I blamed myself for not being there to protect my mom, however useless I would've been. No one said anything as I buried my face in my hands in helplessness. Mom, help me. I don't know what to do.

Warren

"How come you never told us she was your sister?" Ethan asked me the second I got close. I ignored him and threw my tray on the table. I felt the others awkwardly waiting for me to answer and huffed. Apparently hiding a sibling was a big deal.

"She's my half sister," I answered. "Few years after I was born, dad got bored and started making babies elsewhere." That seemed to satisfy the guys at least to ease up, though Layla and Magenta still seemed interested. "That's all I'm giving you," I finalized and everyone let up. Damn Hapa always had to ruin everything.

"Hey, Mom," I said when I walked in the door.

"Warren," she said softly. She was a tough hero, the kind you ran and hid from when she was on your tail, but you'd never know it when she smiled. "Your sister's mother was attacked today. She is in really bad shape. Karen could really use her family now." I sighed. Even though a lot of my hatred towards Karen had turned into indifference, I didn't want to display a fake sense of family. I looked at my mom. Karen wasn't even her kid; she was the very product of my father's insolence, but yet my mom took her in and raised her like her own. She was compassionate, but very stupid.

"Sure, mom, I'll be nice," I promised. She gave me a hug.

"She's at the hospital now, but she'll be back tonight when visiting hours are over." I figured I'd be at work when she got home, so at least I could postpone being kind for a day. I headed up to my room and got started on my homework.

"Don't suppose you understand what locks are for?" I asked Magenta when she popped up in the middle of the closed restaurant. I threw the towel that was over my shoulder into the wash bucket and announced that I was leaving to my boss.

"You want to take me home?" she asked.

"Do I have a choice?" I led her out to my car and drove off.

"So what's the story with you and your sister?" she asked bluntly.

"She's not my sister." She rolled her eyes. With anyone else, I would have told them to shove it, but Magenta wasn't anyone else. "I was 6 years old when I found out he had another kid. It was pretty brutal with my parents. That year was hell for my family, which is saying something seeing how they're so eloquently compatible." Mom being a hero and Dad a villain made room for plenty of gossip and assumptions of my family that I was not well hidden from. I paused before continuing. "When I was 11, she came to live with us, in case her powers were too much for a regular person to handle."

"You know, of anyone to blame for her existence, it's not her." I laughed.

"I sort of got over that. Sort of. At one point, we were almost cool." My face darkened as I let the memory sweep over me. "She was there when The Commander caught my father. It was all over the newspapers. She saw everything go down. She was the one who ID'd him." I saw Magenta's big eyes widen as she realized my sentiments.

"She turned in your father?" I nodded, looking straight ahead. "Wow, you must hate her more than you did Stronghold." I sighed.

"I don't hate her." I was probably trying to convince myself that I didn't, but I couldn't look at Karen the way I should've. I remembered the headlines and stories of my dad being put away. The Commander got a big leap into the public eye after putting him away. Magenta and I stayed silent the rest of the ride to her place. I parked in front of her house and killed the engine. I didn't feel like leaving her for the moment. I leaned back and crossed my arms.

"You okay?" she asked. I sighed letting my heavy chest fall.

"Yeah."

"Okay then." I heard her unbuckle her seatbelt and reached out to grab her hand without opening my eyes.

"Just, stay with me," I requested. I kept my hand around hers with my other arm behind my head. I knew she'd be looking at me weirdly, but I didn't care. All I wanted was the world to disappear and feel nothing for a little bit, not even loneliness. I felt and heard her lean back on her chair too. My fingers shifted to entwine with hers and I felt her pulse slightly heighten and smiled to myself. Five minutes later, I got out of the car and opened Magenta's door to walk her to her doorstep. "Thanks."

"Yeah, sure," she replied. I smiled and she quickly went into her house, looking back at me before shutting the door. I felt better and headed home to face the problems that awaited me there.

There was a note on the refrigerator from my mom telling me she was responding to a distress call. I peeked into Karen's room when I got home, but she was already sleeping. I went inside and took a seat beside her bed. Without her Asian eyes, I could see how she was part of our family. Her eyes were the thing that made it so easy for me to treat her the way I did. It was easy to forget that she was my sister when she looked so much of a different race. But I knew everyone was right. She was my sister. I looked around her room. I hadn't been in here for years. It was so plain. The walls were white and bare, and her desk barely had anything on it. There were some picture frames of her mom and our family, even a few people I didn't recognize. I picked up a frame near her bed of me and rolled my eyes. That was too much emotion for me to handle, so I got up to get ready for bed.

Karen

"You have a reading assignment," Mr. Boy said, handing out copies of a newspaper article. "I want you to highlight and then write an argument of how a sidekick would be helpful in the situation listed in the article." Without raising my head from my arms, I peeked at the article. The hero cop who had been working hand-in-hand with civilian police was being investigated for fraud and embezzlement. I laughed internally at the familiar face. Maybe life is fair.

At lunch, I sat under my tree with my arms crossed, eating my sandwich. A shadow loomed over me, but my eyes didn't move from the nothing that I was staring at.

"Karen," Lash sang. He sat beside me and offered me chocolate. I grabbed it; I wanted sugar. "So did you see me in Save the Citizen? I was on fire. You know, Speed and I were undefeated for awhile..."

"Where's the villain penitentiary?" I asked him.

"What?" I looked over to him.

"If I wanted to visit a prisoner, where would I go?" He looked at me oddly.

"You want to visit Baron Battle?" he asked me. I nodded.

"There's no way. They don't let villains get visitors." I knew Lash had been the ones to pull the strings to get everyone off the hook so easily, so I decided to take advantage of that knowledge. I smiled and batted my eyes.

"I heard you were a bad boy once," I tried to say seductively. "Surely you must have a way to get me there." I danced my fingers up his chest. "Maybe you could take me there and we could get something to eat afterwards." A smile crept up on his lips and I was hoping my charm was working. Perhaps I was my brother's sister.

"I'll talk to my dad about it."

"Perfect," I purred.

I made a tuna salad sandwich for the first time. It is pretty good. :D Please review and let me know what you think!